Greatness can?and often does?arise out of undistinguished and ignoble beginnings. This collection of biographical vignettes of celebrated Americans of a bygone era tells the stories of twenty-one individuals?a baseball player, hotel owner, producer, band leader, umpire, jockey, actress, as well as enterprising promoters and entrepreneurs?who began as nobodies but achieved the impossible. Engaging, illuminating, educational, historical, unforgettable. It is the our good fortune that the contributions of these distinguished Americans who lived over 80 years ago were noted and recorded by the astute eye and graphic pen of Niven Busch. Their stories are as inspiring today as they undoubtedly were at the time they were written. Bravo! And they first appeared in The New Yorker magazine.
